A young girl in Northern California who woke up early in the morning to discover blood in her underwear thought she had started her period, but it was later determined that she was actually bleeding from a gunshot wound she sustained during a drive-by shooting.

The parents of the 10-year-old girl phoned the family doctor around 2 a.m. last Thursday to report the bleeding and were told it was "consistent with menstruation."

However, when the girl awoke for school five hours later she was still in pain, and a search of her bed revealed bullet holes.